Building a new fixie...

Ahhhh... the project has started.  I ordered parts and they'll start trickling in over the next week or so.  Hopefully I'll have it all and built by the middle of next week.  Finding time and a place to ride it are going to be tough. 

 

What is it???? 

 

I've wanted a big-tired fixie for riding off road for a while.  This will be fully rigid and at this point will have absolutely no brakes.  The frame is designed around the Surly 3.7" endomorph tire and Large Marge rim.  From what I was told, there are only 6 of these frames in existance.  The frame is steel and the welding work on it is seriously cool looking.  The fork is definitely a little different than what I'm used to.  It uses a through axle and a kind-of unique bearing set-up.  I can't really describe it more until I actually see what it looks like. 

 

I went with shorter cranks than usual -- 175mm.  The bottom bracket spindle is one of those 48 spline variety.  ISIS cranks and BB were an option, but I went with the weird splined ones because I also went with tubular chromoly cranks for strength.  It is easy to mess up your cranks when you can't coast over obstacles.  Someone my size has to be careful with that.  I'm also going seriously retro with this and getting platform pedals for it. 

 

To start out with I'll just be getting used to riding this thing.  I'll use it as a grocery getter and just do some urban riding on it so I get used to not coasting.  Hopefully by early spring I'll be hitting the trails with it.  In the beginning it will be mostly mellow stuff... Wakefield, Rosaryville and maybe Schaeffer.  I'm definitely going to have to learn to deal with log hops on this. 

 

I'll post photos when I start getting stuff in.  I don't mean to be so mysterious.  I'm just not sure how it is going to turn out until I have parts in hand. 

 

More to come soon. :D

 

Pete